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I'm a partner in a startup in Southeast Asia. In November there were just the 3 of us. Since then we've added 4 full-time staff, an intern, 3 part-time staff, and one contractor. We'll have about 20 staff and operations in 5 countries by August. The tech scene out here is starting to really take off, and I wouldn't be surprised to see more entrepreneurs coming here to found startups. Tons of human capital, cheap cost of living, high rates of internet connectedness, ridiculous rates of smart phone penetration, huge markets. The community is pretty chummy and supportive. There really aren't a lot of drawbacks. Singapore and HK are the two easiest places in the world to do business, and even Thailand has recently seen a VC firm founded. We're funded, but I think funding is overrated. It's certainly not an absolute necessity out here where you can hire junior programmers for $700/month and rent an office with a swimming pool for $1,500/month. I do think there's a lot of irrational exuberance in the startup industry worldwide. Startup entrepreneurs are no longer interested in creating sustainable, profitable businesses. They just want to show explosive growth (often times by faking it), expect some sucker to buy, and then take the money and run. The way I see it, if your startup is worth buying, then you should be very reluctant to part with it, because it's going to be generating enough money that you'd want to stick with it.
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Jan 23, 2013 03:58
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| # ¿ May 5, 2024 04:02 |
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creamyhorror posted:Where are you? I'm in Singapore and hoping to launch a site/app, and would love insights and advice. You sound like you've gotten a very quick start - on my end we have no funding and have been doing the coding and work ourselves for months. Launching is intimidating when the local market is so small and we don't have any good plan for penetrating another market. I'm in Bangkok. I can't imagine how expensive it is to operate in HK/Singapore. We're structured to take advantage of HK/Singapore's superior financial environment, but operations are in Bangkok for now. That said, I think the vast majority of our revenue will come from HK and Singapore. Until that happens, our footprint in both of those cities will be minimal. I can't really say much about getting funding out here, because ours comes from the San Francisco area. Thailand's first VC fund launched this past month. It's called M8VC. Check them out. Dudes over in the States will probably laugh since they've only got about $10 million in capital
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Jan 27, 2013 14:03
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